French ban Muslim woman from pool for wearing 'burkini' swimsuit

A French woman who converted to Islam has been banned from wearing a "burkini"
in a swimming pool outside Paris.

Muslim convert Carole who was banned from using a swimming pool in France for wearing a "burkini" outfit which covers her body and hair.

By Henry Samuel in Paris

6:28PM BST 12 Aug 2009

The woman, named only as Carole, 35, was told that the garment, a swimsuit that covers most of the body, was "inappropriate" clothing for a public baths.

Pool staff said her three-piece Islamic swimsuit she bought in Dubai - consisting of a headscarf, tunic and trousers - was against pool regulations and unhygienic.

They had "reminded her of the rules that apply in all [public] swimming pools which forbid swimming while clothed," said Daniel Guillaume, a manager at the pool in the suburb of Emerainville.

The ban was imposed as President Nicolas Sarkozy's government is considering an outright ban on all Islamic dress, such as the head-to-toe burka or niqab, that it considers a "sign of subservience" and "not welcome" in France.

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Carole, who converted to Islam aged 17, said that one lifeguard had initially given her permission to wear the garment.

She said: "When I bought it I was told it would afford me the pleasure of swimming without revealing my body, which is what Islam recommends.

"I called three swimming pools in my area and a lifeguard of one at Emerainville asked me to come and put my burkini on so he could make up his mind.

"He saw no problem with it, but warned me he alone would not have the final decision."

She bought a season ticket for the pool for herself and her children and was initially allowed to swim several times.

But on Aug 1, she was suddenly banned from wearing the burkini because it was against hygiene regulations.

Yannick Decompois, the district swimming pools director, said: "This has nothing to do with secularism, but is a simply a hygiene problem. For the same reasons men are also banned from wearing shorts."

"The error was to have let her through in the first place," he said.

Carole, however, said she was "made to understand it was a political problem".

"For me, it's segregation and I am going to fight to try and change things," she said.

Earlier this year Mr Sarkozy invoked the wrath of radical Muslims in France and abroad by saying burkas "debased women" and were not welcome in France.

"We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity," he added.

André Gérin, a Communist MP, who is heading a parliamentary commission looking at whether to ban the burka, yesterday said the burkini was "militant provocation" and should be banned.

"There is a political and militant project behind this outfit - perhaps even gurus who are whispering to her to play the victim and publicise her complaint," he told Le Parisien.

Some swimming pools had already caved into women-only sessions, he said, but this was apparently "not sufficient for fundamentalists".

"What they want is a world of burkas," he warned.

France is home to Europe's largest five million Muslim population. In 2004, it passed a law banning students from wearing veils and other religious symbols in schools.